Good Morning - it's Friday, November 2, 2007, and welcome back to Good Morning BWIA, a light compendium of news relating to Broadband Wireless Internet Access that I try to deliver in the morning.
Man, That Geeky-Looking Verizon Wireless Guy Sure Is Busy. Today's breathless Verizon Wireless press release (I receive several per week... every week) extols an upgrade of Verizon Wireless' network in Port Huron, Michigan, the 150-year old, 32,000-soul Maritime Capital Of The Great Lakes. Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess is 1xEV-DO Revision A wireless telephony Broadband Internet Access delivering (claimed) 600 Kbps - 1.4 Mbps download, 500-800 Kbps upload. Verizon Wireless' prime motivation for such upgrades is the second service mentioned in the press release - V CAST, a service for downloading music, "high-quality videos, and the coolest 3D games found anywhere". That's the hope, anyway, that a good take rate of the the high-margin V CAST service will eventually cost-justify the 1xEV-DO Rev. A upgrades, but the ugly (for Verizon) truth is that the "just a mobile wireless bitpipe to the Internet" BroadbandAccess service is the far more popular service of the two, and in places like Port Huron, the offer of "works most anywhere" Broadband Wireless Internet Access makes a huge difference. I had mentioned written about a previous VW network upgrade near my hometown (Port Clinton, Ohio) in Sandusky, Ohio , and apparently VW's upgrades in smaller markets aren't incidental; a quick glance at recent VW press releases reveal upgrades in Battle Creek and Jackson, Michigan, "Six Southwest Indiana Counties", and Western Kentucky.
Today's Clearwire Modem Weather Report* for Hollywood Hill, Woodinville, Washington - Solid 4 Bars.
Broadband Wireless Internet Access 30-year Anniversary Celebration on November 7, 2007. As wonderful as the Seattle area is, as a techie, there are many times I wish I lived in the Bay Area so I'm within "commute" distances of unique technology-related events like this one. I rarely "reprint verbatim" announcements, but this is one of those rare times when it's merited. It's especially memorable to me as I started experimenting with Amateur Packet Radio in approximately 1985, and writing professionally about Broadband Wireless Internet Access in 1997.
The Web History Center and the Computer History Museum proudly present Major Internet Milestones: A 30th Anniversary Celebration of the First Three-network Transmission
Featuring Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Don Nielson, and other original participants.
Moderated by Gina Smith.
Sponsored by Cisco Systems, SRI International, and Rockwell-Collins
1977 marked a critical milestone in the development of the modern Internet and also wireless networking. While many people trace the Internet's origins to the ARPANET of the late '60s, in fact the word "internet" means joining different kinds of individual networks together. This kind of internetworking made its formal debut with the three-network transmission of 1977.
In the fall of that year, an unmarked step van stuffed with futuristic equipment, scientists, and sometimes fully uniformed generals quietly cruised the streets of the Bay Area. Only an oddly shaped antenna gave any hint of its purpose. The moment of truth came on November 22; on that day, data flowed seamlessly through the van between SRI International in Menlo Park and the University of Southern California via London, England, and across three kinds of networks-packet radio, satellite, and the ARPANET. The test was also a major milestone in packet radio, the technology which foreshadowed WiFi and other kinds of wireless internet access.
On November 7, 2007, the Computer History Museum and co-host the Web History Center will present a special celebration of this historic demonstration that spawned the Internet we know and use today.
Please join us for a panel presentation with recollections and perspectives from Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn, Don Nielson, Virginia (Strazisar) Travers, Jim Garrett, Irwin Jacobs, Don Nielson, and Paal Spilling. Our moderator is noted tech journalist Gina Smith. The restored packet radio van will be open for tours from 5:30-7:00 pm.
WHERE: Computer History Museum
Hahn Auditorium
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
WHEN: Wednesday, November 7, 2007
6 pm Member/VIP Reception
7 pm Program
Wine provided by The Mountain Winery
Registration
Free-- please register early as space is limited. Suggested donation of $10.00 at the door from non-members. To register or for more information on the event, please visit the Museum's website at:
http://www.computerhistory.org
My thanks for Bill Vodall, fellow Amateur Radio Operator WA7NWP for posting this to a mailing list that we both participate on.
WSJ Reports Sprint Considering Merger With Clearwire. Interesting story, but something else very interesting was in the article - mentions of the Google Gphone; that sparked several interesting mental juxtapositions. First... my prediction is that Sprint will in fact bail out on WiMAX and essentially lease, sell, or merge their 2.5 GHz spectrum in a joint venture with Clearwire. Whatever form it takes, Clearwire's Craig McCaw's Machiavellian manipulations extending back close to a decade will come to fruition and he will be, defacto, in charge of the vast majority of 2.5 GHz spectrum in the US. It boils down to Clearwire's stockholders making a pure play bet on the ascendance of "pure" Broadband Wireless Internet Access and Sprint's stockholders fearing "a costly distraction from the carrier's core business". Clearwire stockholders kind of get it, but mostly they're betting on McCaw to "do it again! Sprint's stockholders don't understand that Sprint wireless services are technology-driven, and if you don't have the right technology, versus your competitors, you end up desperately scrambling to catch up; kind of like what the exodus of Sprint customers is indicating right now.
Second... what IF Clearwire did end up with Sprint's 2.5 GHz spectrum and finally launched a nationwide 2.5 GHz Mobile WiMAX network, with Google and its Gphone as the "anchor tenant"? Clearwire seems to want to be in the "pipes" business; at a minimum it seems to understand, unlike every wireless telephony carrier in the world, that in this century, the primary demand for communications is reliable, fast, reasonably-priced, from-anywhere (wireless) access to the Internet. Once so connected, they want to do whatever it is they uniquely want to do. That's the ultimate beauty of the Internet. Google, with its vast fortunes, could easily finance a nationwide Clearwire rollout, and Google gets what it really wants for the Gphone - "pure" open (well, they're going to have to slap Clearwire around about that a bit to understand Google-class "open" Internet), mobile, broadband Internet access.
This Is Just So Sad... And Stupid. Wi-LAN used to be a great company. It made some of the pioneering products in the Broadband Wireless Internet Access industry. It saw the potential of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), the technology behind 802.11a/g/n and WiMAX long before others did. But Wi-LAN just fell further, and further behind its competitors, proving once again that better technology doesn't always win in the battle of the marketplace. But now Wi-LAN has "transformed" itself into a company whose business model is suing other companies over alleged patent infringement. This fails the common-sense test of relevance... Wi-LAN no longer makes products to be infringed upon. Like I said... it's just sad.
Balancing Out Wi-LAN, This Is So Funny! For Us Internet Geeks, Anyway (YouTube) very ably composed and sung and accompanied to the tune of Don McLean's The Day The Music Died by Gary Feldman. To enhance your enjoyment of the performance, here's the explanation for "RIPE": RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) is a collaborative forum open to all parties interested in wide area IP networks in Europe and beyond. The objective of RIPE is to ensure the administrative and technical coordination necessary to enable the operation of a pan-European IP network. Their meetings are apparently numbered sequentially, and the most recent RIPE meeting was #55, held in (no joke) the Krasnapolsky Hotel in Amsterdam October 22-26, 2007.
Here's the link if you don't see the embedded clip - www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y36fG2Oba0. Thanks to Adam Kennedy for posting note of this gem to a public mailing list. Food for thought... maybe we should think seriously about Feldman's "warning" about not switching to IPv6 while we still have time.
Shocking - Qualcomm CEO Jacobs Doesn't Like WiMAX. - Um, yeah. Whatever. In the meantime, the world goes on.
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* Clearwire Modem Weather Report - My Clearwire modem (NextNet Wireless, non-WiMAX) is aimed out the first-floor window of my home office on Hollywood Hill, through the dense tree canopy of the adjacent greenbelt, the leaves of which, especially when wet, are good attenuators of the 2.5 GHz band that Clearwire uses. The wetter the weather, the fewer the bars. It's impressive that Clearwire's system works, let alone works pretty well, under such conditions. Maximum signal strength is 5 bars solidly on (which I've never achieved from this location).
Fine Print - Good Morning, BWIA is inspired by Good Morning, Silicon Valley. The opening image of sunrise over Mount Rainier, Washington courtesy of Buckley (WA) Chamber of Commerce. This morning's "stimulating beverage" is referigerator-chilled (forgot to take it out to warm up) intravenous Vancomycin; Tully's coffee-of-the-day with two shots to follow on the way a medical checkup. This screed was written on a 24" iMac; it still just works. Apologies for missing Wednesday and Thursday's editions - medical issues, again.
De and 73 - Steve Stroh, N8GNJ
This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).
Two things:
1. Wi-LAN was acquired by Eion Wireless who still pushes out the VIP boxes. So, if you want to get your hands on those great devices, they are still available.
2. That video made me LOL while worrying that my non-techy friend upstairs would make fun of me if she heard me listening to it. Haha
keep up the good work.
Posted by: Drew | November 05, 2007 at 09:21